I think we stand in the same place on restricting the freedom of speech. I'm dubious about even the right to ban 'hate speech' which incites violence - given the flexibility of meanings like 'physical harm' and 'violence'. Such things do have to be balanced, but it's quite a complex and relatively friction free slope.

That is the problem with the synthetic left (as the garrulous glasweigan calls them) - they think they believe entirely in liberal and left wing concepts - but only if they get to define and enforce that liberalism. If you agree with their world view any disagreement is indictative of their struggle against oppression - if you disagree with them, you have no right of reply as you are the oppressor. Regardless of what you're saying, wherever you may fit in their internal and subjective hierarchy of the world. It's right wing nonsense dressed up in liberal clothes.

I think lots of people enjoy our work (or seem to) because it is 'refreshing' - and what they mean by that is usually that they can't believe we've said it. It's considered 'too offensive' - but there's nothing offensive about anything either you or I say - only the idea of what we're saying is offensive, and it's only offensive to 'some people'. Those people are defined, and when you boil it down - those people aren't offended, they're simply weaponising the concept of offence. That's the insidious creep... and I'm with Gervais on this one. The only answer to 'Im offended' is 'so what?'.

The Twitter mob will blow themselves apart eventually. As happened with the Levellers, with the French Revolutionaries, with the Russians and with almost every super-empowered but decentralised social movement along lefty-lines. The end cannot come soon enough.